Traditionally, tobacco has been the base material for almost all smoking materials, including cigars, cigarettes, pipes, hookahs, etc. Over the past decade, smoking hookahs has become increasingly popular in both the United States and abroad. Unlike people who smoke by traditional means, such as cigarettes, a large amount of people who smoke hookahs do so solely as a social event and/or for the enjoyment of the flavor, rather than as a result of nicotine addiction. However, the existing materials for hookah smoking are still made from natural tobacco. This tobacco is commonly referred to hookah tobacco.
Hookah tobacco is processed by various methods to enhance or weaken different properties of the base tobacco. Once the base tobacco is processed, it can be flavored if desired. Such processes are well known in the art. Flavored hookah tobaccos are the most common materials smoked in hookahs.
Thus, despite the fact that hookahs are commonly smoked for enjoyment of flavor and as a social luxury, hookah smokers are still subjected to nicotine and other unhealthy additives and/or components that are inherent with all tobacco based products.
Thus, a need exists for a hookah smoking material that minimizes and/or is free of the unhealthy effects of existing hookah tobacco products while still delivering adequate flavor and the social enjoyment related with smoking.